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Starkey: The joke’s on the Steelers

Starkey: The joke’s on the Steelers

By Joe Starkey
Published: Wednesday, December 26, 2012

This Steelers‘ offense is an abomination.

Worse, it‘s soft.

They cannot run the ball. They do not score enough (2.2 touchdowns per game if, unlike them, you‘re scoring at home). Their red-zone approach stinks, and maybe most critically, their quarterback still goes sandlot too often and is getting his brains beaten in.

Bottom line: Bruce Arians must go.

I mean, Arians called for 25 passes in the first half at Dallas! He didn‘t use a fullback on several short-yardage runs against the Chargers! His third-and-1 handoffs take an hour-and-a-half to unfold and only work when Isaac Redman performs a miracle.

The running game is laughable. Byron Leftwich, who couldn‘t steal a base off Rod Barajas, has the team‘s second-longest run of the season. Rashard Mendenhall doesn‘t even bother to show up anymore.

The Steelers have lost their two divisional home games even though the opposing offense DID NOT SCORE A TOUCHDOWN. That‘s hard to do.

Mike Wallace is now a possession receiver. Emmanuel Sanders can‘t take a hit. Antonio Brown has lost his mind.

This group needs a coordinator with a backbone.

Besides, Arians is too friendly with Big Ben. He‘s more like Ben‘s uncle than his boss. You can‘t have that. Players can‘t be friends with coaches. That‘s insane.

It‘s obvious, in watching Ben play, that Arians isn‘t tough enough on him. Did you see the ridiculous interception that lost the Bengals‘ game? Typical Ben, doing whatever he wants out there and taking silly chances.

The Steelers need a guy who‘ll get in Ben‘s face, for Ben‘s own good. The man turns 31 in March. He won‘t make 34 if this kind of punishment keeps up.

What‘s more, Ben has misplaced his clutch gene. Behold his recent history in big games:

• He was terrible in the 2010 AFC Championship.

• He air-balled the last shot of Super Bowl XLIII.

• He double-dribbled on the last regulation possession of the Denver playoff game.

• He had multiple chances to finish off the Cowboys two weeks ago and the Bengals four days ago and came up empty every time.

The magic is gone.

So here‘s my suggestion for Steelers president Art Rooney II: Let it be known to Mike Tomlin that you‘d like to see Arians jettisoned. Leave the decision up to Tomlin, of course, knowing that any intelligent employee will take a hint from his boss (I sure hope Art and Mike aren‘t friends, by the way, because we‘ve seen how poorly that has worked out with Bruce and Ben).

That‘ll be it for Arians, but the Steelers should let him down softly. Maybe disguise the firing as a “retirement.” It‘s not likely Arians would find work right away and make the Steelers look bad. Everybody knows Ben made him.

Secretly, I‘m sure Arians still wants to be a head coach. Can you imagine that? With his luck, he‘d probably wind up in charge of a no-hope, 2-14 team.

Once Arians is gone, Rooney II should tell reporters that Ben needs to “tweak” his game, even if Robert Kraft would never say anything like that about Tom Brady. The Steelers need to rock Ben‘s world. He‘s too comfortable.

Look, it‘s past time the offense carried this franchise for a bit, but that‘s hard to do when you can‘t score. This sickly unit has reached 30 points once all season. The Seahawks score that many in a quarter.

If the Steelers don‘t hit 30 against Cleveland on Sunday, it‘ll be the first time in 20 years that they failed to reach the number at least twice in a season.

The bigger picture, though, is the quarterback. Ben must be tamed. He must be spared more bodily harm. My God, the man nearly speared himself to death with his own rib. Somebody needs to put him in his place — the pocket — and maybe even blow up at him once in a while.

I don‘t know who the new guy should be, but I‘ve got a solid tip for Rooney II and Tomlin.

apparently so. And if you look at the trail of evidence for the season, a reasonable person would likely conclude the same.
Wow, were most of us BA haters THAT wrong in our assessment of him as an OC? or was there something else going on with the offense this season?

apparently so. And if you look at the trail of evidence for the season, a reasonable person would likely conclude the same.
Wow, were most of us BA haters THAT wrong in our assessment of him as an OC? or was there something else going on with the offense this season?

I'll give one explanation; the Colts played a total of 5 games against teams with winning records this season. And in those 5 games they were 2-3. So at least BA continued the trend of beating up on bad teams, which even Haley was unable to do this season.

This wasn't the most eloquent article. But there does seem to be a common theme with Tomlin teams. Nothing changes. There are certain units on the team that perform poorly year in and year out. It's almost like a curse. You can swap out players or coaches, yet the curse continues.

The Tomlin curse could be our own Curse of the Bambino or something.

I'm just typing gibberish because I have no idea what that writer meant. He probably shouldn't get paid for that kind of work. Maybe he was drunk or in the midst of a stroke when he wrote that?

This wasn't the most eloquent article. But there does seem to be a common theme with Tomlin teams. Nothing changes. There are certain units on the team that perform poorly year in and year out. It's almost like a curse. You can swap out players or coaches, yet the curse continues.

The Tomlin curse could be our own Curse of the Bambino or something.

I'm just typing gibberish because I have no idea what that writer meant. He probably shouldn't get paid for that kind of work. Maybe he was drunk or in the midst of a stroke when he wrote that?

Maybe true, but it's not like Tomlin is ignoring or hasn't tried making changes. canning the ST coach, bringing in a new OL coach. It just seems that his changes haven't panned out and maybe it is his lack of experience in evaluating coaching talent. Maybe he doesn't really know what a winning assistant coach looks like?

Was Arians involved in injuring 2 out of our first 3 draft picks? Making Hampton play horrible for 2/3rd's of the season? Having Troy's calf hit with a pipe between games? Was he involved in Wallace not reporting for camp and then sulking like a little girl who lost her candy the rest of the season? Did he coordinate Hood being a work out warrior off the field but a mediocre at best player on it? The O-line being a revolving door? The list goes on and on. I'm so sick of hearing about a coach that's not even a part of the team anymore. Who gives a f#ck what he's up to now.

The Owners of the team said it was time for him to go. And they were right. He was staler than month old bread. Good riddance. His time here had come and gone. And Tomlin, the head coach, got to pick the new coordinator. He picked Haley. Maybe Ben was mad from the start that Mike didn't consult with him on the choice. I never heard Haley putting Ben down. Saying Ben wasn't following the game plan, criticizing Ben for ridiculous sacks and even more ridiculous interceptions. Didn't hear haley ripping the WR's fro dropped balls or the RB's for countless fumbles. Haley has been nothing but professional since he arrived. It's Ben that's been the pouting douche bag about the O coordinator change since last March. The whole "I'm not Big Ben" thing was just a lie. He's not Big Ben in the bars but he's certainly still a diva when it comes to this team.

Haley was a guy who could not wait to come here. He grew up around this team with family ties to it. He was getting away from that debacle of a team in KC and getting a chance to start over. I'm sure he was beyond excited to get a cailber of player as Ben. But from the start Ben was d!ck about it. It's time for him to mature and realize that when Haley is successful, Ben is succesful, and then the whole team is a success. Everyone, including the D, feeds off that. It's not that hard to understand unless you are purposefully being obtuse (Shawshank reference...).

Was Arians involved in injuring 2 out of our first 3 draft picks? Making Hampton play horrible for 2/3rd's of the season? Having Troy's calf hit with a pipe between games? Was he involved in Wallace not reporting for camp and then sulking like a little girl who lost her candy the rest of the season? Did he coordinate Hood being a work out warrior off the field but a mediocre at best player on it? The O-line being a revolving door? The list goes on and on. I'm so sick of hearing about a coach that's not even a part of the team anymore. Who gives a f#ck what he's up to now.

The Owners of the team said it was time for him to go. And they were right. He was staler than month old bread. Good riddance. His time here had come and gone. And Tomlin, the head coach, got to pick the new coordinator. He picked Haley. Maybe Ben was mad from the start that Mike didn't consult with him on the choice. I never heard Haley putting Ben down. Saying Ben wasn't following the game plan, criticizing Ben for ridiculous sacks and even more ridiculous interceptions. Didn't hear haley ripping the WR's fro dropped balls or the RB's for countless fumbles. Haley has been nothing but professional since he arrived. It's Ben that's been the pouting douche bag about the O coordinator change since last March. The whole "I'm not Big Ben" thing was just a lie. He's not Big Ben in the bars but he's certainly still a diva when it comes to this team.

Haley was a guy who could not wait to come here. He grew up around this team with family ties to it. He was getting away from that debacle of a team in KC and getting a chance to start over. I'm sure he was beyond excited to get a cailber of player as Ben. But from the start Ben was d!ck about it. It's time for him to mature and realize that when Haley is successful, Ben is succesful, and then the whole team is a success. Everyone, including the D, feeds off that. It's not that hard to understand unless you are purposefully being obtuse (Shawshank reference...).

You make some interesting observations. I haven't really looked back and thought about it, but Haley's been a choirboy. Maybe he's allowed Ben to walk all over him a bit. I was kinda hoping for some sorta outburst from Todd.